How are you? Are you enjoying your weekend?

This is a good, hard and plum blossom week on my side.

Until this weekend, the parent company of our company? Shenzhen Stock Exchange has had 1012 listed companies. As its subsidiary company, our duties on information publishing, index making and managing, quotations’ marketing and the other jobs are getting much more, the standard is getting much higher. A piece of good news is that our company’s network safety work has gotten a good comment in the country's network safety checking.

Except the normal work, we are preparing an annual company speech contest in the middle of July. Since 2003, our company has been keeping the event as a part of our corporate culture. I had been in charge of this work for 6 year until 2008. Therefore, the new leaders of the job invited me to help them to choose the contestants from the first round and second round competition and make sure who will enter the final...

During the work, one of my biggest feelings is ? Our team is so young and our employees' flowing is so fast -- I have not known most of the contestants already and our employees' average age is just 30 after the new company has been found for about 9 years.

How to fix a more efficient system to attract the most excellent talent to join us, to make them to work for the company for a long time and to arrange the senior talent to be improved or to retire has become one of the most important things that decides the company's long-term healthy and continuous development. As an important topic, we are studying it and we will go out of the company to make some new investigation in the same industry next week.

In my art learning field, it is just like a plum blossom week indeed.

On Monday, a former Chairman of Cultural Union of a district of Shenzhen, the Chairman of Shenzhen Poetry and Lyrics Association and a famous Calligrapher -- Mr. Bin F and his friends came to my office. We had a good talking on Buddhism, Chinese painting and Poetry. The good news is that Mr. Bin F thought that my music creating for Chinese classical poems is quite meaningful and in a good quality, its taste is very suitable to express the meaning of Chinese classical poetry. He encouraged me to keep working on it and he would like to support me to publish it with some way.

Then, since Monday night, I have created my 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th painting of plum blossom from last week. The more I created, the more I loved to paint, the more I painted, the more I gained from the thinking...

With much respect, I wrote the famous lyric of Chairman Mao Zedoing - Bu Suan Zi?Yong Mei on my paintings and also, I created a piece of music to match it.

During the learning, creating and thinking, I do feel that my painting and thinking level is improved naturally. Just like most of Chinese classical poets, to express our own dreams and ideas via write a natural thing, such as a flower, I do want to express my own thoughts and feelings via creating, singing the little flower ? plum blossom in the hard time indeed.

Do you know? This week, almost every day, it rains, everywhere is wet and hot, so that we have to use air-conditions in the home, car and office. The bad weather often makes all of my joints pain, my hands are difficult to hold a pen and my eyes cannot see clear.

However, no matter how uncomfortable I am, I kept doing the exercises, working on the things that I should do in my office and at home. Every day, I told myself several times ? Shirley, you will be getting better along with the long-term exercises. You will certainly recover some day. :- )

The interesting thing is that when I wrote the poem with Chinese brusher and ink Monday night first time, my hands could not hold the small brusher well for the joints of my fingers' ache and my hands have changed bigger. But, I did not give up, I kept writing once and once, while I played piano as soon as I could. Saturday afternoon, when I wrote on my 4th painting, I did feel that my hands were much easier...

With the same will and love to the beautiful little flowers, I completed my music creating for the famous lyric of plum blossom by Chairman Mao Zedong, and I played it and sang it on Sunday.

Even though I could not see clear very much, I needed not copy my music and English translation with a thick pan on a piece of bigger paper as I did before I went to the US in April. I can see + feel + guess to work on my music instrument already...

I am not sure what will happen with me. I will keep doing my best, to learn the Plum Blossom, to blossom her beautiful flowers in the hard time, to be the herald of the spring and return among the flowers with a big smile when all of the flowers have been blossomed...

How about you? Do you have anything special in your week?

I am just a learner on art of painting, music and English, to work on the web site in my free time. I would really like to do a few things with what I have learned to make this little web site to be an Electronic Bridge of Culture Exchange, Chinese Language Learning & Friendship making. To help the others while to improve myself.

I would like to appreciate your understanding, directions, supports and hope to get your friendly direction and help.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, you are welcome to write to shirley@ebridge.cn or shirley004@yahoo.com, or to publish your opinions in the forum.

Shirley Yiping Zhang
Sun., June 27, 2010